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Ugh. Before you thank T-Mobile, try actually signing up for their contract-less service. I literally spent two hours on the phone, and they still managed to s

Ugh. Before you thank T-Mobile, try actually signing up for their contract-less service. I literally spent two hours on the phone, and they still managed to screw up almost every aspect of my plan. Many other aspects of the service become more expensive, nullifying the (minimal) cost savings, and the activation fees are outrageous. Additionally, they will never allow you to sign up for T-Mobile contract again. In short, they try to neuter the no-contract option in any way they can. I am actively regretting it right now, and the only upside is that I'm looking for a different carrier, and I don't have to worry about early-cancellation fees.

durin42 16y ago
Wow. I've had nothing but great experiences with the no-contract option on T-Mobile. Signup was completely trivial, have had no complaints about the service. It's been a very real savings. What do you mean, you can't sign up for a contract? They're actively turning down more money for the same service?
- Calamitous 16y ago
  > What do you mean, you can't sign up for a contract? They're actively turning down more money for the same service? shrug That's what they told me-- my account would be flagged and I wouldn't be allowed to sign up for a contract with them ever again once I went the no-contract route. It didn't make any sense to me at the time, and still doesn't, except for cynically suspecting that it was a scare-tactic to chase me back to a contract option. I'm curious if anybody knows of any legitimate reasons why this would be their policy.
  - lanstein 16y ago
    I didn't have any problem doing this either, but I also went in with the pre-release G2 and the salespeople were just about peeing their pants :)
  - Swervo 16y ago
    I had absolutely no problem switching over to the unsubsidized, contract-free account, took less than 5 minutes over the phone, but they did tell me the same thing about not being able to go back to contract. However, another friend of mine did the same thing, then decided he wanted to go back on contract. He called them asking for it and, when they declined, said he wanted to cancel and go for another provider. They routed him off to the retention department who apparently do have the authority to get him back on the contract plan and did so with minimal fuss. Of course, YMMV, but it worked out just fine for him. In the meantime, I'm still saving money over two years by going non-contract.
  - jfoutz 16y ago
    I haven't worked in a phone tree in a loooong time. That said, when there are hundreds of people who could take your call, don't be afraid to just hang up and roll the dice on someone else. 50% of reps are below average. if you're pretty sure you're a standard deviation or two off center, just call back.
anigbrowl 16y ago
Funny, because I walked into a T-Mobile with my N-1 store and the franchisee set me up in about 20 minutes with their pay-in-advance plan. I had one problem, where they tried to bill me at the outset for 3 months' service in advance instead of one. I called them up and said they had better refund it. They said it was standard policy where there was no contract. I pointed out that I brought my phone to them, the account was profitable from the moment it was opened, and that it would make for a more than usually compelling internet consumer tantrum. I got a crawling apology and a month of free service to substantiate it. I pay $70 at the beginning of each month. I get unlimited data and have never hit the 600/mo. minute limit, if I did the next rung of the plan is $75 or $77. It's reasonable and more importantly, predictable.
- Calamitous 16y ago
  I'm glad it's funny to you. For me it was without a doubt the worst customer service/sales experience of my entire life. I don't mean that as mere invective or rhetoric, I mean that literally-- I have never had a worse experience trying to give a company money. Almost nobody I talked to had any idea what was going on or what they were talking about. I was billed for all kinds of crazy stuff I never signed up for, and I have been billed an activation fee of ~$120 for three months running. I'm also being billed for phone insurance I've cancelled at least four times. I want to state that every phone rep I've talked to has been unfailingly polite, which is marginally nicer but doesn't fix any of my problems. Bad but obsequious customer service is still bad customer service. I've since been told not to bother with T-Mobile's phone system; apparently walking into a T-Mobile store is a much less stressful and faster way of dealing with them. I plan on trying that, if I ever feel the need to contact them again.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    I'm sorry if you got the impression I was mocking you. By 'funny' I meant 'strange' rather than 'amusing.' I generalized from my ability to get the problem fixed quickly and finally, and felt surprised that you had such a persistent problem. I didn't mean to belittle or dismiss your bad experience, and would be quite interested to hear from others about which set of experiences is more typical. I'm not involved with or any kind of stockowner in Google or T-M by the way.
lallysingh 16y ago
I have a N900 (you have to buy them straight from nokia at full price). I walked into a T-Mobile store, and asked for a plan. They said: (1) Cool phone! (2) Sure, here you go. I'm paying about $20/month less than I did on my AT&T/iPhone plan. It's nice.
brown9-2 16y ago
Many other aspects of the service become more expensive Can you elaborate on this, specifically what extra fees or services they charged you for?
- Calamitous 16y ago
  The big one was my SMS plan. With contract, I had (iirc) 200 SMSes a month; going no-contract I have to pay $10/mo. for the smallest text plan they offer. I don't get a lot of texts, the few freebies were plenty for the little bit I used. Looking back at my data plan, I now realize they've grandfathered in my data plan on my line at the previous rate ($25/mo) rather than the new rate ($30/mo) which they told me that they would not be able to do-- still a screwup, but one in my favor this time. :) I just hadn't looked at that part of the bill, so that's one that I thought had gone up, but hadn't Additionally, there's the phone insurance I'm still being billed for-- it's $4 a month now, but I'm so sick of fighting with them that I'll try one more time, but I'll probably just keep paying it until I go with someone else.
  - gcb 16y ago
    I still can't wrap my head around the fact that here in US you have to pay for received SMSs.... and calls. The SMS problem i worked around with sms->email services. and can't wait to have a solid SIP client on the phone so i can also ditch the call problem :)
  - drivebyacct2 16y ago
    Why do people still pay for SMS in the days of Google Voice and MMS?
    - mattew 16y ago
      For one thing, Google Voice sms does not work with shortcodes, so if you want to use any sms service based on a shortcode, Google Voice will not work.
      - 16y ago
pkulak 16y ago
I'm using a pay-as-you-go plan with my Nexus One and couldn't be happier. I just called them up and they had a sim in the mail for me that day.
- tocomment 16y ago
  What do you say exactly when you call them up? Also what happens if I find out tmobile doesn't work well in my area? Is there a return policy?
  - pkulak 16y ago
    Just say you want a pay-as-you-go plan. They are on their website. If you don't like it, then just throw out the sim card and don't refill your account. ;)
asnyder 16y ago
You can only sign up for the Even More Plus plans (contract-free plans) by walking into an official t-mobile store. They used to offer it on their website as a nice choice, but they removed to reduce confusion, but probably really to increase contracts. Furthermore, if you walk into the store, they also have an extended payment plan for your phone, thus you can get a Contract Free plan, which will save you $20 a month, for example Even More Plus 500 (Unlimited Data, Unlimited Text, Nights, Weekends, and 500 minutes) for $59.99 (equiv contract plan is $79.99) a month. Then they have an extended payment plan for your phone where you can pay $20 a month with 0% interest and no fees until your phone is paid off, thus giving the best of both worlds, no contract, no big upfront costs for phone, and once your phone is paid off you don't have that added cost per month. Really excellent and saves you around $400 - $1000 versus a contract.
- lutorm 16y ago
  Wow, you are right. I signed up for the Even More Plus on the web when I got my Nexus one six months ago, but now it's gone. Back then it was a breeze, I just picked "Sim" for my phone option and that was it. That's kind of annoying.

durin42 16y ago

Wow. I've had nothing but great experiences with the no-contract option on T-Mobile. Signup was completely trivial, have had no complaints about the service. It's been a very real savings. What do you mean, you can't sign up for a contract? They're actively turning down more money for the same service?

Calamitous 16y ago
> What do you mean, you can't sign up for a contract? They're actively turning down more money for the same service? shrug That's what they told me-- my account would be flagged and I wouldn't be allowed to sign up for a contract with them ever again once I went the no-contract route. It didn't make any sense to me at the time, and still doesn't, except for cynically suspecting that it was a scare-tactic to chase me back to a contract option. I'm curious if anybody knows of any legitimate reasons why this would be their policy.
- lanstein 16y ago
  I didn't have any problem doing this either, but I also went in with the pre-release G2 and the salespeople were just about peeing their pants :)
- Swervo 16y ago
  I had absolutely no problem switching over to the unsubsidized, contract-free account, took less than 5 minutes over the phone, but they did tell me the same thing about not being able to go back to contract. However, another friend of mine did the same thing, then decided he wanted to go back on contract. He called them asking for it and, when they declined, said he wanted to cancel and go for another provider. They routed him off to the retention department who apparently do have the authority to get him back on the contract plan and did so with minimal fuss. Of course, YMMV, but it worked out just fine for him. In the meantime, I'm still saving money over two years by going non-contract.
- jfoutz 16y ago
  I haven't worked in a phone tree in a loooong time. That said, when there are hundreds of people who could take your call, don't be afraid to just hang up and roll the dice on someone else. 50% of reps are below average. if you're pretty sure you're a standard deviation or two off center, just call back.

anigbrowl 16y ago

Funny, because I walked into a T-Mobile with my N-1 store and the franchisee set me up in about 20 minutes with their pay-in-advance plan. I had one problem, where they tried to bill me at the outset for 3 months' service in advance instead of one. I called them up and said they had better refund it. They said it was standard policy where there was no contract. I pointed out that I brought my phone to them, the account was profitable from the moment it was opened, and that it would make for a more than usually compelling internet consumer tantrum. I got a crawling apology and a month of free service to substantiate it. I pay $70 at the beginning of each month. I get unlimited data and have never hit the 600/mo. minute limit, if I did the next rung of the plan is $75 or $77. It's reasonable and more importantly, predictable.

Calamitous 16y ago
I'm glad it's funny to you. For me it was without a doubt the worst customer service/sales experience of my entire life. I don't mean that as mere invective or rhetoric, I mean that literally-- I have never had a worse experience trying to give a company money. Almost nobody I talked to had any idea what was going on or what they were talking about. I was billed for all kinds of crazy stuff I never signed up for, and I have been billed an activation fee of ~$120 for three months running. I'm also being billed for phone insurance I've cancelled at least four times. I want to state that every phone rep I've talked to has been unfailingly polite, which is marginally nicer but doesn't fix any of my problems. Bad but obsequious customer service is still bad customer service. I've since been told not to bother with T-Mobile's phone system; apparently walking into a T-Mobile store is a much less stressful and faster way of dealing with them. I plan on trying that, if I ever feel the need to contact them again.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  I'm sorry if you got the impression I was mocking you. By 'funny' I meant 'strange' rather than 'amusing.' I generalized from my ability to get the problem fixed quickly and finally, and felt surprised that you had such a persistent problem. I didn't mean to belittle or dismiss your bad experience, and would be quite interested to hear from others about which set of experiences is more typical. I'm not involved with or any kind of stockowner in Google or T-M by the way.

lallysingh 16y ago

I have a N900 (you have to buy them straight from nokia at full price). I walked into a T-Mobile store, and asked for a plan. They said: (1) Cool phone! (2) Sure, here you go. I'm paying about $20/month less than I did on my AT&T/iPhone plan. It's nice.

brown9-2 16y ago

Many other aspects of the service become more expensive Can you elaborate on this, specifically what extra fees or services they charged you for?

Calamitous 16y ago
The big one was my SMS plan. With contract, I had (iirc) 200 SMSes a month; going no-contract I have to pay $10/mo. for the smallest text plan they offer. I don't get a lot of texts, the few freebies were plenty for the little bit I used. Looking back at my data plan, I now realize they've grandfathered in my data plan on my line at the previous rate ($25/mo) rather than the new rate ($30/mo) which they told me that they would not be able to do-- still a screwup, but one in my favor this time. :) I just hadn't looked at that part of the bill, so that's one that I thought had gone up, but hadn't Additionally, there's the phone insurance I'm still being billed for-- it's $4 a month now, but I'm so sick of fighting with them that I'll try one more time, but I'll probably just keep paying it until I go with someone else.
- gcb 16y ago
  I still can't wrap my head around the fact that here in US you have to pay for received SMSs.... and calls. The SMS problem i worked around with sms->email services. and can't wait to have a solid SIP client on the phone so i can also ditch the call problem :)
- drivebyacct2 16y ago
  Why do people still pay for SMS in the days of Google Voice and MMS?
  - mattew 16y ago
    For one thing, Google Voice sms does not work with shortcodes, so if you want to use any sms service based on a shortcode, Google Voice will not work.
    - 16y ago

pkulak 16y ago

I'm using a pay-as-you-go plan with my Nexus One and couldn't be happier. I just called them up and they had a sim in the mail for me that day.

tocomment 16y ago
What do you say exactly when you call them up? Also what happens if I find out tmobile doesn't work well in my area? Is there a return policy?
- pkulak 16y ago
  Just say you want a pay-as-you-go plan. They are on their website. If you don't like it, then just throw out the sim card and don't refill your account. ;)

asnyder 16y ago

You can only sign up for the Even More Plus plans (contract-free plans) by walking into an official t-mobile store. They used to offer it on their website as a nice choice, but they removed to reduce confusion, but probably really to increase contracts. Furthermore, if you walk into the store, they also have an extended payment plan for your phone, thus you can get a Contract Free plan, which will save you $20 a month, for example Even More Plus 500 (Unlimited Data, Unlimited Text, Nights, Weekends, and 500 minutes) for $59.99 (equiv contract plan is $79.99) a month. Then they have an extended payment plan for your phone where you can pay $20 a month with 0% interest and no fees until your phone is paid off, thus giving the best of both worlds, no contract, no big upfront costs for phone, and once your phone is paid off you don't have that added cost per month. Really excellent and saves you around $400 - $1000 versus a contract.

lutorm 16y ago
Wow, you are right. I signed up for the Even More Plus on the web when I got my Nexus one six months ago, but now it's gone. Back then it was a breeze, I just picked "Sim" for my phone option and that was it. That's kind of annoying.